Studying Cultural Change

Abstract

Was the decline in alcohol consumption, experienced in many countries during the nineteenth century, related to growth of the coffee culture? This question is approached first through a simple content analysis of qualitative data obtained from an empirical sociological study of inebriety in Norway in the 1850s by Norway’s first sociologist, Eilert Sundt [1859], then by a time-series analysis of quantitative data on coffee and alcoholic beverages in Norway. The results confirm that coffee filled a cultural ‘niche’ created by the restrictive Norwegian alcohol policy in the nineteenth century. Sundt’s qualitative data point clearly in this direction. Although the quantitative data - particularly on coffee - are far from ideal indicators of consumption, the results lend some credibility to the substitution hypothesis: The trends coincide fairly closely for the two beverages, and in the detrended series there are measurable signs of correlation when the confounding effects of economic development are controlled for. It is concluded that the political attempts to reduce alcohol problems in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, i.e. reduced availability and increased taxes, may have been alleviated by the growing popularity of coffee as an alternative, ‘new’ beverage for the population at large, and not just the higher social classes.